an internet romance went on trial and as a result will die in prison. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. hey, there. good morning, everyone. i'm a i'm alex here in new york. it is 7:00 a.m. in the east. 4:00 a.m. west and here's what's happening right now. immunity. long-term trump organization cfo cuts a deal with federal prosecutors. >> you don't eat a big fish to eat a smaller fish. he gets immunity in the hopes he can help with someone else and cohen doesn't look like the big fish they would be going after here. >> so who might be the latest target and could it blow the lid off trump's financial dealings?

plus, actions speak louder than words. why the topics the president trump didn't talk about last night in ohio, and to impeach or not to impeach. new polling on where the voters stand. we start with the growing concern among a number of current white house officials and former campaign aides that the president could end up issuing pardons for paul manafort, this despite warnings to at least wait until after the midterms to do something like that. president trump had a fundraiser for the ohio republican party last night making no mention of his formter campaign manager or others who have turned on him, focusing his ire on democrats instead. >> while democrats run down our country, they really do, they run it down, it's always negative, nasty, the way they come after me. get used to it. we won the election, we're going to win again in 2020 and hopefully we're going to keep winning. >> we're also getting new insight into the mystery safe and just how the national

inquire rer kept negative stories about the president out of its tabloid. this in light of its ceo cutting an immunity deal with the prosecutors in the michael cohen case. there is what a former executive said last night. >> this is a way the inquirer operated for a while. one of the benefits of being the owner of the company, you can publish what you want and so that's how you collect friends who want those favors and it's -- they take care of each other and that's kind of what the situation happened with trump. >> were you surprised that david pecker basically turned on donald trump and obtained an immunity agreement? >> no, i'm not at all because at the end of the day what's more important to david pecker is david pecker. >> joining me now, a reporter with the hill.com and journalist and hope of the faqnyc pod cast. >> you covered new york. you know all of these characters.

what surprised you more? was it the m community deal for david pecker, the knowledge of this safe or the immunity deal for allen weisselberg, the cfo of the organization and why did you choose either one. >> i'm not surprised that anyone around trump chooses to protect themselves. trump demands loyalty but doesn't inspire it. he's a very transactional karktkarkt character. he very much wants things in exchange for something else real estate often revolves on those terms. new york politics very much and politics in many places interacts that way and trump has learned these lessons over years. what was surprising to me was that federal prosecutors were able to quickly to get david pecker publisher of ami to sort of come forrd what and cooperate. usually someone in trump's position is able to offer something sort of in exchange to prevent that kind of cooperation

from happening. he's sort of dangling that kind of offer with paul manafort but it looks like the people who are around trump very much act like trump, keeping their own interests first and foremost and being very transactional. >> he's certainly shown loyalty is a one way street and you talk about david pecker i mean, according to that former executive he said david pecker is out for david pecker first and foremost. but which one stands to do more damage in your assess mts to the president? >> i think pecker's safe is going to be a very big sort of question mark, but i would caution, although many journalists, almost every journalist doesn't regard the national enquirer as a real journalistic sort of enterprise, it is very cautious road to go down when prosecutors are going to a news organization or something that purports to be a news organization and asking them about information that they decided not to publish. i no ethe national enquirer, it's mocked. it's not a journalistic effort, but the prosecutors can show

they were more in the habit of collecting information and doling it out for specific purposes they may have an easier time. but this is a slippery slope to go down. >> julia, is there a sense from within the white house, that inner circle of what they fear most? is there any way to gauge that? >> yeah, i mean, i think very certainly is worry at this point and we can look at the president's rhetoric on all of this coming out. we've seen a very frustrated rhetoric from the president. he said flipping should be illegal. clearly frustration with michael cohen and with the paul manafort stuff we've seen that, you know, his rhetoric on manafort is much more gentler because manafort has been loyal to him. but lots of frustrated rhetoric on cohen and the recent developments around all of that, but potentially more shoes to drop. we saw that the ap reported that there was, you know, a safe of many trump stories that were clearly unflattering towards the president and possibly having to do with payment, hush money

payments, so there definitely is a worry within trump's orbit about what could happen in the future and you know, this comes at an interesting time before the midterm election, so this could very neg tatively impact races that don't want to be focused on the constant scandals surrounding the president. >> you bring up manafort. we mentioned the pardon there. with regard to a possible manafort pardon, it says that aides expect trump to go rogue on that despite the fact that he's been counselled by many that he should not issue a pardon to him. what are the consequences if he indeed pardons paul manafort? >> there are huge political consequences with obviously establishment republicans, congressional democrats and democrats in general, but i don't think it will necessarily impact his base. i don't think trump's base in many republican voters necessarily care about this probe and you know everything that's -- >> wait, so you think even if he

were to do that before the midterms that it would not have an effect on the outcome of the election at all or at least how people go to the polls? >> not necessarily with his base. it could have a very huge impact on democrats and swing voters but i don't think it will impact his base if he were to do that before election but like i said, a lot f ohis language is suggesting that he likes to award loyalty and clearly he wants -- it seems like he wants to reward loyalty with manafort at this case, but we don't know if manafort will flip or not. he still has another trial coming up in d.c. he's close to 70 years old. he's facing a max 30 years from just this last virginia trial. so we have a long ways to go on that. >> and among the rge chas are obstruction of justice. can we throw up the progressive set of time magazine covers that have suggested that this past week has left the president -- look at that last one all the way to your right there. the president is just drowning

in the oval office. do you think the president's feeling that? he's made no mention of the rough week he had in the ohio speech. is there a sense of how he feels? >> no, because it sort of changes moment to moment and whatever the reality is, trump has a habit of sort of projecting a more optimistic kind of view, if you will. and remember, we've seen this pattern before. trump is advised, trump goes rogue, advisors back pedal and try to cover up. so trump being told one thing and then maybe doing something else is something we've seen many times before but i think the outcome of the midterm elections is really going to shape how he starts talking about what is happening around him. >> okay. you guys stay where you are. we'll come back and talk with both of you in just a bit. there's another story we're monitoring for you. that being senator john mccain's fight against cancer. it is on going but his family stating he is ending his treatment. he's been battling the disease for over a year now. both his wife and his daughter

sending out tweets about him along with the statement. new today from hawaii, hurricane lane has been downgraded to a tropical storm, but the national weather service is warning this storm still poses a big threat for flooding through at least tomorrow. then you've also got winds on top of that of at least 70 miles per hour. we're in maui with the very latest. a very good morning to you. what's it looking like out there? >> reporter: good morning to you, alex. the rain is falling steadily, not a whole lot of wind. officials breathed a sigh of relief when that storm was downgraded to a tropical storm but they warned the threat from this flash flooding especially the stuff that's already on the ground, still very real. >> catastrophe in slow motion. lane wreaking havoc even after- downgraded to a tropical storm overnight. the storm now pounding the coast, covering hawaii in sheets

of rain unleashing disastrous levels of flooding, submerging cars and destroying homes. >> if your home is threatened, leave the area. >> reporter: on the big island some areas recording nearly 3 feet of rain. prime conditions for mud slides, prompting several rescues. and on maui, heavy winds fuelling a string of brush fires, forcing mandatory evacuations. >> i thought i was going to wake up to a raging flood and really high winds and high rain, but instead i woke up to a calamity of fire. >> we all planned for the very worst and hoped for the best and i think we are -- we're lucky. >> the storm not forecasted to make direct landfall but its lingering churn may mean even worse flooding. >> we dodged a bullet. doesn't mean it's over. we'll have rain and wind and local flooding and we need to be vigilant. >> and tourists trapped by the

storm making the best of it. >> i just like seeing the winds and you know, blowing and the waves are just amazing. it's really cool. something like you've never seen before. very powerful. >> reporter: this morning residents here bracing for more heavy rain as lane lingers. on big island the national guard being brought in to deal with the impact from all of that flooding. storm warnings across the state expected to last throughout the day. >> i'll tell you, thank you very much. a little after 1:00 in the morning. appreciate that. all this week's immunity deals, how might robert mueller use them against the president if that's what he elects to do. but before the break, axios calls trump's hell week fear and fury the worst week of donald trump's presidency. >> we've heard of black friday. this week we had orange tuesday.

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included with your internet. and over here i'm having my birthday party. dj fluffernutter, hit it! ♪ dj fluffernutter simple. easy. awesome. ask how to get $300 back when you sign up for xfinity mobile, and purchase a new samsung phone. visit your local xfinity store today. comey lies and links. he's a liar and he's a leaker. no, it's true. i mean, why -- is this guy being looked at? it's the most incredible thing people have ever seen, what's going on, but we're going to straighten it out. it's going to get straightened out. >> president trump there last night in columbus, ohio, turning

attention away from himself after enduring one of the most difficult weeks in his presidency including immunity deals in the michael cohen's case and david pecker as well as trump organization cfo allen weisselberg. downing me now is our legal analyst, a very early good morning to you on this saturday. so a couple of things here with david pecker and allen weisselberg now that they have immunity, what does that mean for the president? >> it means that these witnesses now have complete motivation to tell the government whatever they need to know and that could be -- i can't stress enough how rare immunity is. it is incredibly rare to get immunity from a prosecutor. it's a huge process. they have to get approval and it's probably plausible denyability so they can say i can't do it. i can't get it. what they'd much rather do is have someone plead guilty and then say maybe someday down the

road if you decide to cooperate we'll dangle a level reduction in your sentence like a carrot in front of you, but that es ooono -- that's only if you razzle dazzle us with everything you know. immunity could blow up in a prosecutor's face if that person ends up being the real doer, the real bad guy. so they only give out immunity when they really want something. a few months ago they would say cohen was the one who quote, knew where the bodies were buried. now we're saying something about weisselberg along with david pecker that there was an approval of immunity. >> but with regard to david pecker we can pretty much what he is being queried on. that's on the payments to stormy daniels and carren mcdoug gal, the stories that ami and the national enquirer bought and

then sk squelched. is there reason to believe that he as the cfo of the trump organization will be queried about that? is it just about these payments? >> that's why this is particularly interesting because if it is about cohen and if it is about the payments, that doesn't make a lot of sense because cohen's already been got. cohen's already pleaded guilty. he's no longer really of interest in terms of securing a conviction for the government. so why move on to weisselberg? it can only mean to give that grant of immunity that the information he has is so valuable it logically extends beyond payments that cohen has already testified to. now of course the government needs corroboration, they do need someone if addition to cohen saying these payments were made. they have a tape, maybe that helps them but it doesn't make sense that they would give weisselberg immunity for just securing more of a conviction against michael cohen who's already been convicted. the implication is that this immunity grant is for a large

body of information and all you need to do is look at allen weisselberg's title over the last several decades to get an inference about where that's leading. >> so michael cohen takes the plea deal admitting guilt on eight counts. you've got paul manafort convicted on eight counts but i want to play for you what one of the jurors said yesterday about plea deals. listen to this. >> the prosecution's star witness, rick gates, you're saying that he didn't have that much of an impact on you? >> no, most of us just threw that whole witness out because he had something to gain by saying what he said, and we thought that didn't make him a credible witness. we didn't like it that he took a plea deal. >> look, that's the kind of thing the president's been complaining about. how do you gauge the veracity of someone's testimony. >> that's a decision made by the prosecutor and it's a tough one because as defense attorneys will point out in kwloclose thae

government is making a deal with the devil. they are putting on the stand and putting under oath a liar. he told you he's a liar. he is a liar. he's a criminal, and the only reason he's here is not out of the goodness of his heart, but to get the benefit of his bargain, to get a deal and save his own skin and save his family's skin. and so sometimes that works. other times jurors say, we don't care, we know they're all criminals. we find him credible. in this instance, it was the former. they found him essentially not credible. >> all right. out of the goodness of your heart being here when it comings to 7:30 in the morning. thank your, danny. the odds of president trump getting impeached? my gut instinct is that trump won't make it through his first term. >> there's our friend and i wonder if he's willing to bet on it but folks actually betting on

predicted.org are a bit more optimistic about the president's fate in the short term. they give the president an 85% of remaining in office this year, however a 37% chance of being impeached by the end of next year. the odds of impeachment during his first term overall 44%. how do americans now feel? a new poll after the break. you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory.

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it becomes 'dancer', what!? all the stars tom hanks keep this movement going strong. every network every star kevin bacon dream big with us. one night to save lives get ready to see it all tune in live, september 7th 8/7 central countdown to the midterms. at stake the balance of power on capitol hill. voters will decide the future of congress in just 73 days. on tuesday primaries on tap in arizona and florida and oklahoma will hold runoff primary elections. >> it is in your hands that the future of this nation will be decided. >> upstart primary winner alexandria cortez of new york is expected to win in november to become the youngest woman ever elected to congress. she'll turn 29 in october, but the bigger story here, she's

among a record number of women who have already won house primaries. the "new york times" points out that more than 75% of the 200 winning women are democrats and 66 more women are still in the running in their upcoming primaries. new polls show voters split on impeaching the president trump. so julia, pretty clean split here in this morning consult poll. voters asking whether congress should start impeachment proceeding against the president. you see the numbers there. 42% apiece pro and con. >> i think there's a big split from democrats on this issue. we have some who have really seized upon the recent developments of cohen in terms of impeachment saying this really gives them a leeway in the event they do win back the house in november. however, other democrats such as nancy pelosi are much more cautious because there is a fear that if they continue to talk about impeachment and really run on this ahead of november they

could actually spur trump voters, trump's base republicans to come out to the polls and possibly disrupt that blue wave. >> she keeps talking about the phrase culture of corruption. that's what she wants to be sort of the marching orders for democrats moving forward. but the president addressing impeachment during his fox news interview saying the market would crash. his lawyer giuliani says americans are going to revolt. is this hype, are there any facts behind these claims? >> or is it wishful thinking? the one thing that the president has tried to argue is that impeachment without usurp the democratic process in the 2016 vote. we like to think of people making decisions about what they support based on facts and which ones wins outs. but opinion leaders, people like trump, if they are talking about something they can help shape opinions so if he's talking about this, this is the sort of outcome that he wants to see.

is that a prosecutor would be too much to go forward with that. >> thank you so much. good to see you in early on a saturday morning. that's wrap for me, everyone. i'll see you again at noon eastern time but now it's time for your business with jj ranberg. stay with us. ♪ experience the versatility of utility. at the lexus golden opportunity sales event. lease the 2018 rx 350 and rx 350 all wheel drive for these terms. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. your hair is so soft! did you use head and shoulders two in one?

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and ask how you get xfinity mobile included with your internet. plus, get $300 back when you buy a new smartphone. xfinity mobile. it's simple. easy. awesome. click, call or visit a store today. coming up, the owner of virginia's red hen restaurant refuses service to the white house press secretary sarah huckabay sanders. does it make any business sense for owners to reject customers. >> swearing its employees and vendors to secrecy to stop any leaks about upcoming products and designs and celebrities create a snack bar that's helping to save children's lives. when it comes to making choices for your business, we have your back. that is all coming up next on msnbc's "your business."